


we'll be the light that cross the darkness

by MilleniaOfFossilRecords



Series: IchiRuki Month (2017) [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kon is here in spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 03:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13802094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilleniaOfFossilRecords/pseuds/MilleniaOfFossilRecords
Summary: Day 1 - Missing Scene





	we'll be the light that cross the darkness

"Now what?"

Rukia looks up, hands still outstretched over Ichigo's should and head, healing the wounds his body sustained. He's not looking at her, his gaze glued to his palm. He's been so quiet ever since Kisuke and the others left, standing aside as she tends to his body.

"He needs a vessel," she says simply, turning back to inspect her work. _Almost done_ , she thinks. His head wound is healed and the one at his shoulder mostly closed. He'll just have to wash and wrap it up as soon as he gets home, just as a precaution. And likely get rid of his school shirt now. "We could get one from a hospital, from this place called a morgue- or so I've read."

Ichigo splutters, finally turning to face her. "Wha- _No_! We're not stealing a dead body!"

Rukia frowns up at him. "Why ever not? No soul will be inhabiting it, so why are you complaining?"

He gawks down at her, momentarily speechless. A very short moment. "Why am I complaining?! Newsflash, this town isn't quite that big! People will notice if a corpse disappears out of the hospital's morgue and it's suddenly walking around town like it's no big deal! Next thing you know we'll end up with some lunatics screaming about the second coming!! Not to mention what this guy did while in my body!" he shudders remembering all earlier events. He still doesn't know how he's going to show his face tomorrow at school. Fake a sudden, personality-changing illness? Act like he hadn't even gone to school today and let everyone else wonder if they had a shared, mass hallucination? "I'm not gonna disrespect the dead like that, letting this guy do as he pleases with somebody else's face!"

Rukia huffs at him, finished healing his body she rises to her feet. She pats her skirt down and annoyed she asks, "then what do you suggest we do, Ichigo? Please I'd love to hear your brilliant ideas."

He opens his mouth before she's even finished speaking but closes it, no rebuttal coming from him.

She watches him for a moment before sighing. "I understand you concerns but we don't have many options here." She lifts her hand up, raises a brow at his glare and smirks when he drops the mod soul into her palm, grumbling as he makes his way back into his body.

He sits up after the fact, scratching at the back of his head. "There's gotta be something we can do besides _that_ ," he says up to the sky with a pout (and she can almost hear him screaming at her that ' _he doesn't pout, he scowls-_ dammit, _Rukia_!').

She turns before he can notice her smile. She can already tell he's going to put a lot of his focus on this until they find a good solution. "In the mean time, let's go home before someone sees your shoulder and asks questions."

"Huh- ah, _dammit_! Not again!" he groans behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

He spends the trip home complaining about his uniform so much that she snaps at him, telling him to hand the shirt over and she'll have Kisuke fix it up as recompense.

She says the same thing after his bath when he turns the television on and lands on the news when he starts channel surfing and _oh_ , there's Ichigo's body ten whole meters above the ground.

(He asks, _the hell is mister hat'n'clogs gonna do about that footage_ , knowing- thinking it can't be as simple as the usual _Men in Black_ memory erasing shtick Rukia tends to pull.

She shrugs at him, as if to say, _Who knows. His problem now_.)

 

* * *

 

 

Peace, after that (once she's called Kisuke and given him a thorough verbal lashing), lasts about two hours. She's so immersed in the novel in her hands she completely misses his turning and groaning from his bed until he sits up, aggravated groan bursting from his lips so loudly and suddenly that she ends up letting out a small squeak.

"What? What is it?" she asks, quickly dog-earing the page she was on. It can't be a hollow, her phone would've started going crazy otherwise. Ichigo ignores her in favor of grabbing the mod soul from where she left it in a small handkerchief on his desk.

"Meet me outside," he says without so much as a glance back at her before he slams his bedroom door shut.

She sits on the floor clutching her book in her hands in surprise, confusion, and growing annoyance running through her veins in equal measures before she huffs. She makes her way to the window, throwing the book behind her towards his desk as she goes. 

She's out of the house and in the street before Ichigo, belatedly checking that one one saw her jump out of a second story window of a boy's room. The coast is clear.

Ichigo throws the door open moments later with a shout, "later, Yuzu!"

His pace slows when he closes the gate, shoulders slouched and hands shoved into his pants pockets. Rukia gets the feeling that he's getting ' _into character_ ' in case they meet someone they know along the way of wherever he plans on taking her.

He tells her they're going to the park. "I've got an idea, so we need to at least test it out. You got that glove of yours, the one that pushes souls out?" he asks her, pulling the mod soul out of his pocket.

"I do." She never leaves home without the essentials, it'd be as dangerous as it would be irresponsible to forget them at home. Who does he think she is? She's a professional.

"Good," he says. "It'd be pretty bad if we mess up and lose this guy again."

"What do you mean _we_ , this is your idea, whatever it is."

Ichigo scoffs. "Who's the reason I'm in this mess in the first place again!?!"

"So what's this theory of yours, you want to test out?" she asks, letting his comment fly past her.

He rolls his eyes at her evasion. "Yeah, I was wondering actually, if the vessel I guess, for this guy has to necessarily be human?"

"Oh?"

"Like would a dog or a cat work?" he asks.

"You know, I'm not quite sure," she admits.

She should call Kisuke just to make sure but-

"It'd still push out the animal's soul, are you going to be ok with that?" she asks, turning to face him slightly as they walk.

"Yeah- wait, _what_? Seriously!?!" he blurts out, almost tripping on his own two feet.

"Yes?" she answers but it comes out as a question instead, both from his reaction and because while she's seen plenty of animals on the streets of rukongai (as well as the koi ponds of the Kuchiki estate) even she's not 100% clear on how they got there, if this is how it work for animals alike. After all, no shinigami has to perform konzo on an animal- human souls inhabiting animal bodies being the exception to the rule.

(-and now she can't stop thinking about tiny bunnies in tiny shihakushos doing konzo on other bunnies- oh no- _no_ , she's a professional, dammit!)

"Oh my god," Ichigo mutters like he's just discovered something astronomically astonishing and after everything he's come to learn about Soul Society _that_ seems a little silly. "All dogs _do_ go to heaven."

**Author's Note:**

> Omake:
> 
> In the end they'll crouch and wait for hours, waiting for death on a street of heavy traffic only to go home empty handed.
> 
> And in the end they'll both say, " _ah, screw it_ ", and cross their fingers as they wait for a dirty plush lion to rise, _like something out of Frankenstein_ , Ichigo will say.


End file.
